Effortless Living: Can Surrendering the Struggle Create Space for Miracles?
On grappling with paradox, the power of "relaxing and being" to manifest your dreams without struggle, small wonders, and embracing a more effortless approach to life.
“There is no need for me to make any struggle, any effort. There is no need for me to fight for anything. I can relax and be.” —from the Stress card in the Osho Zen Tarot
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Throughout my journey over the past year and a half with a serious, life-threatening dis-ease, I have assiduously refused to think or speak of it as a “fight” or “battle.” These terms are so common in our world, especially when dealing with cancer. And it’s not the way I wish to approach this journey.
Disease is a messenger. It’s doing the best job it can to keep us alive, given the inputs it is dealing with. And it’s trying to get our attention, to propel us to make positive changes in our lives.
Nonetheless, in the all-out effort I made to heal over the past more-than-year, I have come to feel deeply depleted.
When, a few weeks ago, I got the devastating news that the disease was back, I felt utterly unwilling to engage in the kind of massive campaign of healing I had before. But, how then, can I heal?
Every Monday morning, Don and I draw an Osho Zen Tarot card for the week. Mine this week was the Stress card. Obviously, the health circumstances I’m dealing with are immensely stressful, though I’ve come to a way better place internally around them and am not feeling that stress the way I was.
What really resonated for me on the card was the quote above. I’m done with struggle and efforting. I’ve done so much of it in my life. To create the life I want and my big dreams. To do everything, really. Effort has been my default strategy, even though I try to teach more easeful ways of partnering with Life in my classes.
Now, I don’t want to do it anymore. I want to “relax and be,” as the card says.
This is a great, positive change for me. Yet, I’m faced with a huge quandary. I’m faced with a supposedly terminal illness that I want to heal. How am I going to bring about this miracle without struggle and efforting?
I’ve been asking this question for weeks. How can I go about this in an entirely new way?
Related to that is this quandary: I no longer want to try to control reality or bend it to my will. I don’t want to fight with what is. And I want to rest in the present momenbt where peace is always to be found. Yet, I do want to heal.
How can I go about intending to heal, visualizing healing, doing my healing meditations and actions from a place of deep surrender and acceptance of what is, yet still be truly committed to healing, not collapsed in resignation and defeat? How can I live in the now and still work toward change?
I’ve found surrender, acceptance, and peace, which has been amazing. And I know you have to accept something before it can change.
But I haven’t yet found the hope and faith in my ability to heal that I had so clearly before. And I haven’t truly found the way of co-creating with Life that could have me bring about the miracle I need while accepting what is—without any efforting, struggle, or fight.
So, that’s where I’m sitting these days, in these paradoxes and questions, searching for a new way of being. I know it’s possible. I know, in fact, that the most powerful place to co-create from is the state that Lester Levenson, who created the Sedona Method (a tool that has made a HUGE difference in my life for many years), called “hootlessness.” When you don’t give a hoot about achieving what you desire or not.
What I don’t know is how not to give a hoot and still powerfully work towards a particular outcome. I welcome your thoughts on any of this in the comments! We could have a very fertile conversation around this.
And now, on to some lighter topics. . .
Weekly Wonders
There have been so many small, and larger, wonders this week I can’t share them all. Here’s a few.
I went with my friend Sands to see the tulips (and gardens) at Ananda. Always amazing. (Don took some of these photos when he went to the gardens a few days later.)
I know many of you here are writers (or closeted writers). This wonderful post by Jeannine Ouellette has great tips for creative writers, especially prose writers, but most of the tips also well apply to poetry.
Many months ago, my friend Andi sent me this wonderful book of poetry by Andrea Gibson called You Better Be Lightning. I’m finally getting around to reading it, and it’s incredibly moving and good. Gibson, Colorado’s current poet laureate, is well known for their performances of their poetry.
This poem of theirs knocked my socks off. I read it at my monthly fire circle and cried at the end. Here’s Gibson reading it on her Substack.
Don and I watched a gorgeous documentary last night, The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. Yo-Yo Ma brought together exceptional musicians from countries along the old Silk Road route to collaborate on an exceptional, multi-cultural series of concerts. It’s simply stunning.
We watched it on Kanopy. Kanopy is a wonder in itself, free movies available online by using your local library card. Some really fine movies there. The selection changes monthly.
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Quick update from the Wonder Factory
I am continuing to draw nearly daily—it is such a refuge and pleasure—and am now taking my friend Denise’s Watercolor for Beginners class online. So fun and I’m learning a lot. You can find out about her classes—both in person and online—on her website.
I wrote some new poetry this week—hooray!—and revised the poem I wrote during one of the workshops at the Sierra Poetry Festival. I’ll share it below the paywall because if I put it above the paywall, I cannot send it out to literary magazines to be published. So, how about upgrading to a paid subscription if you haven’t already?